When a 911 call is placed from a landline telephone, the address of the landline telephone is immediately displayed on the 911 operator's or public safety answering point operator's screen which occurs without verbal communication from the 911 caller. However, when a 911 call is placed from a cellular telephone, the caller's location does not show on the 911 operator's screen, and unless verbal communication takes place between the 911 operator and the caller, the location source of the 911 call (and therefore, the caller) is not passed along to the 911 operator. In other cases, although the caller is able to communicate with the 911 operator, the caller may be unable to provide the operator with the caller's current location. Accordingly, all cell phones are at a disadvantage when contacting emergency 911 operators relative to contact from a landline telephone.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States has mandated that cell phone carriers must automatically provide the location of 911 calls made from a cell phone to public safety answering points within certain accuracy parameters (specifically, within 50 meters 67% of the time and within 100 meters 95% of the time). The FCC has discussed additional requirements with respect to providing precise location data for a 911 call made from inside a building, structure or facility. The foregoing requirements are collectively commonly referred to as the FCC's e911 mandate. Failure to provide precise location data of the caller's location may place the caller's life in jeopardy, which is why the FCC has set high standards. For example, police officers responding to GPS or TDOA type location data might have to search dozens or even hundreds of apartments or offices before finding the precise location of the 911 caller since such technologies give a latitude/longitude reference to the 911 call, which may, depending on the terrain, building structure and signal attenuation, provide a reference point which may be several hundred feet from the location of the 911 call.
Several companies are trying to satisfy the FCC requirement by using Global Positioning Signal (GPS) or Time Distance of Arrival (TDOA) between cell towers to provide location data. These technologies are achieving only limited success in consistently providing accurate location data in urban areas and in rural settings sometimes missing the actual caller's location by several hundred feet. Companies using these technologies experience even less success accurately locating the caller when the caller is in a building where the cell phone's signal is shielded. This creates many difficulties as cell phones are often used in residences, apartments and office towers, warehouses, factories and schools.
When a 911 call is made from a landline telephone in an office that is connected to the landline via a PBX type master switching box then only the street address appears on the 911 operator's screen which also makes obtaining the caller's precise location challenging. For example, a 911 call placed from a landline on the 35th floor of an office tower will only reveal the office tower address to the 911 operator. The 911 operator would only know that the call was placed from the 35th floor (and specifically office no. 3526) if the caller spoke with the responding 911 operator.
This presents difficulties as, in many cases such as sudden illness, armed robbery or assault, the caller can dial 911, but is unable to speak with the 911 operator (or may not know or remember the address). The lack of precise location data provided to the 911 operator in such a situation may put the caller's life in jeopardy. Another example is personnel working alone. Such personnel would benefit from technology that would allow them to surreptitiously contact and provide a 911 operator with their current location data. Since in many instances an overt call for help could trigger a violent reaction from an actual or potential aggressor, being able to contact a 911 operator without alerting the actual or potential aggressor could be life saving.
Due to the difficulties associated with providing 911 operators with precise location data from cell phones and office phones in the circumstances described above, it is desirable to provide a system and method for providing more precise location data to a 911 operator without requiring the caller to verbally communicate location data with the 911 operator.